guest column Love Letter to Small Towns. OK, to Lewisburg! by John Manchester CONNIE MANCHESTER John Manchester has served as mayor of Lewisburg, West Virginia for 12 years, during which his community has received awards including Coolest Small Town in America 2011. He was named Mayor of the Year in West Virginia in 2012. The Wilderness Society named him an Environmental Hero in 2007 for his efforts to designate wilderness areas within the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia. Mayor Manchester dons a mock Willy Wonka costume for Lewisburg's annual Chocolate Festival, held each April. The mountain region of the South is full of small towns built around things like kind people, strong little downtowns and thriving local businesses. I want to tell you what one of them has meant to me. Though I grew up in rural New Hampshire, I finally found home in Lewisburg, West Virginia. West Virginia was kind 58 BlueRidgeCountry.com enough to welcome me to the state 30 years ago by offering to pay for my graduate studies at WVU in Morgantown. It was there I fell in love with the people, the natural beauty and one of my students, who is now my wife. Lewisburg was kind enough to let me join her family by providing me a job with a local newspaper Morehttp://www.BlueRidgeCountry.com